Zone Conference and Stavanger

Once a month we are invited to a zone conference for all of the missionaries in the South Zone, comprising the cities of Arendal, Kristiansand, Stavanger, Haugesund and Bergen. The mission president, his wife and sixteen missionaries come together and have an all day meeting. It is great to feel the spirit of the young missionaries, the other senior couple, the Robards serving in Bergen, and President and Sister Poulsen. Here one of the young elders, Elder Holst from Danmark, who served with us in Tromsø and helped us set up this blog, is helping myself and Elder Robards with our computer problems during the lunch break. It is great to have some one with a little know how about computers.
From left to right: Elder Jonathan Lange and Elder Tyler Alexander, both serving in Kristiansand, and Elder Jacob Reese, serving in Arendal.
After the zone conference was over Sister Humphrey and I stayed in Stavanger for a meeting for all Seminary teachers that was held in the church building. It lasted until 9 pm and we did not want to drive the two hour drive back home so we stayed overnight in Stavanger. The next morning, before driving home we went downtown to see what Stavanger looked like. This is the downtown harbor area with an old church in the backgroud.
A section of Stavanger has been preserved just as it was two or three hundred years ago, with very narrow cobblestone streets and houses built right up to the edge of the street and very close together. This is a picture of "Gammel Stavanger" (old Stavanger).
In most of the cities that have hills in them and on most roadways going from city to city there are tunnels. We recently read that there are close to one thousand tunnels in Norway. The longest is 24 kilometers (15 miles) long. Many go under fjords. To drive from Haugesund to Bergen one must drive through a tunnel that goes 264 meters (about 2500 feet) under sea level. Notice that there is a house built right on top of this tunnel which is almost in the downtown area of Stavanger.

Stavanger and Haugesund

While in Stavanger for the missionary zone conference and the seminary teachers training meeting we went into the city to see what it looked like. This is the bryggen (warehouse wharf) area where the fish, flower market and many restuarants are. It is now a popular shopping area.
Standing at the same spot but looking out into the harbor. A large cruise ship is just getting ready to leave the dock.
Sister Marcia Nelson, from Boise, Idaho came to Haugesund to look for some of her ancesters farms. She is also writing a book about the king who unified Norway into a nation instead of many fuedal kingdoms, Harold the Fairhair, or Harold Hårfarge. He had a farm near here and is said to buried just outside of Haugesund. She and Sister Humphrey are behind an old church build about 1250 A.D. by one of his great-grandsons, King Olav the holy.
This is the same church. The people in the photo are Elder and Sister Humphrey, and Marcia Nelson. We are standing next to a piller that is called the Virgin Mary's sewing needle. It started leaning towards the church and old legend has it that when it touches the church, it will be the day of final judgement. To prolong the day of judgement priests have several times ordered that the top of the piller be cut back and/or pulled the piller back away from the church and propped it up.
Haugesund holds a jazz festival every year. It is called the Herring Jazz Festival (or Sillajazzfestivalen). Booths are set up all over town to sell anything and everything and people come from all over Scandinavia for this festival. This is a picture of the wharf area with booths on the waters edge. There are boats tied up to the harbor four or five deep.

Touring and church work

One of the families in our branch got a nanny from the Phillipine Islands this fall, Glory May. She will be taking Norwegian language classes sponsered by the government later but wanted to get a head start on the language. Elder Humphrey agreed to tutor her in Norwegian. And now she has asked us to tell her about our church.
This is the usuall Primary in our branch of our church. From l-r:
Matias (10), Lars (6), Johannas (4), and Georg (8). Sometimes there are visitors. Sister Humphrey has had up to 11 come into Primary.
Brother Gunnar Rustad is an extra ordinary man in our branch. He is 81 years old, holds two callings and is very energetic. He has been a member for 42 years, but his wife and children will not have anything to do with religion. He and his wife asked us if they could take us on a tour of some of the places where they had lived in their lives. To build a relationship with her we aggreed, thinking we would be gone about four hours. The next three photo's were taken during our twelve hour journey. This is Fonefjos, a majestic water fall that emptys into an arm of Hardangerfjord.
The turn around point of our journey was a farm high up on a mountain over looking Eidsfjord, at the end of Hardangerfjord. Spectacular view.
All along the roadway, between the fjord and the mountains are fruit farms. They are famous in all of Europe for there fruit. This is a cherry orchard. Large plastic sheets are put over the cherry trees to keep the birds out. The sun gets in but the birds cannot. These plastic sheets are a net material so air circulates in.

Water, water everywhere...

One of the white sandy beaches on the island of Karmøy with a beatiful view of the ocean. Most beaches in Norway are very rocky.
A family in our branch, Lars and Kari Steinsvik invited us to their cabin which is on the shore of a fjord about 40 km. from Haugesund. Here is their two sons, Georg Mikkal (8) and Lars Henrik (6) with Elder Humphrey and their dad, Lars.
Lars, his two sons, Sister and Elder Humphrey, and the Steinsviks nanny, Glory May all in the boat just about to leave to go fishing.
Proof of some of the success Elder Humphrey had. He caught six fish in all but had to throw two of them back, one was a poisoneous fish and the other was so narrow and long that there was no meat on it. Others also caught some fish.
Lars also has five crab boxes set out in the fjord. We checked them all and found four crabs total in them. Here are two of them in the boxes. We did do church work this day and we did receive permission from our Area President to go fishing.

In our branch of the church here in Haugesund we started last month to hold a "linger longer" dinner after our block of meetings each fast Sunday. This is the first one we held so our numbers are few, but we had a good time. After the vacation season of July and August is over we hope our numbers will go up. From l-r: Johannes Hiltunen, Marianne Hiltunen, Reidun Solmunde, Ingebjørg Warvik, Elder Humphrey, Ismo Hiltunen and Gunnar Rustad.
This is the grave marker of Elder Humphrey's maternal great-
grandmother. It is found in the Vats Church graveyard, in NedreVats, Vidafjord Kommune, Rogaland Fylke, Norway. This is the church that they attended and where Elder Humphrey's grandfather was baptized as an infant in the Luthern Church.
Elder Humphrey at the grave marker of his maternal great-grand-
father. He is buried in a different cemetery than his wife, Liv. He died in a community about 10 km. away from where she is buried. His grave site is in the old cemetery in Skjold, Videfjord Kommune, Rogaland Fylke, Norway.
This is the entrance to the library in Aksdal, Norway, about 15 km. from Haugasund. In the library is a very interesting museum titled "Reisende til Amerika" (Imigrated to America). This follows two actual people from this area who went to America around 1850 or 1860. It has displays that describe living conditions in Norway at the time, how they worked to save the money to travel, the conditions on the sailing ships they traveled on, the experience at Ellis Island, life in New York, and finally their life in the mid-west.
This is part of the display showing the people getting off the ship on Ellis Island. Many of the people's names were changed here because the emigration officers couldn't spell their names. About two percent were rejected and returned home because of disease or deformities. Then, without speaking any English, they had to find their way to some where in the USA.

On the island of Karmøy is this church which was built around 1250 AD by one of the Viking kings. There is a stone pillar on the side of this church that is slowly leaning into the church. Legend has it that when the pillar touches the church it will be the day of the final judgement. To prolong the day of judgement some former priests have chipped off some of the top of the pillar
Close to this church is a Norwegian Viking and History museum. Here we are standing beside one of the displays depicting Harold the Fairhair who was the viking king who consolidated the many feudal kingdoms into a single kingdom called Nordweg or Norway, which means northern way. Haugesund is on the shipping route to the north.
Figures depicting how the vikings dressed. Note there are no horns on the helmets. This is the historically correct version.
Another museum near Haugesund is a World War II museum. It is the largest WW II museum in Norway. It depicts life during the war in Norway and in the military since the war. This is Elder Humphrey with Alf Gulbrandsen. He was married to a very active and strong member of the branch who passed away about five years ago. He has never joined the church, but promised his wife that he would attend Sacrament meeting so he is there every week. He took us to the museum and spent the afternoon with us.
This is one of the many displays inside of the museum, showing the victory of the allied forces in Europe.

Haugesund area

On the island of Karmøy. Karmøy is the most densely populated large island in Norway. It is approximatly 30 km. long and five to seven km. wide. It was a center for herring fishing durning the 1800's and many people from this island immigrated to the states around the turn of the 20th century. This is looking across a bay to the small village of Åkrem.
Two of the young missionaries from Stavanger who came to visit us in Haugesund, Elder Benjamin Kerr (from Scotland) and Elder Alexander Ørendahl (from Manchester, England-but born in Norway). We went to a member families home for dinner and to meet and teach their nanny, Glory May, from the Phillipines. Glory May is in the center of the photo and to the right is Lars K. G. Steinsvik, the father.
The gågate (walking street) in downtown Haugesund. Every city in Norway has set aside a street for pedesterian shopping and eating. This street in Haugesund is about six or seven blocks long. It becomes the central part of the city and on Saturdays many of the people come down to the gågate to see others and shop. Recently shopping malls have been built in most of the cities so the people now go to malls as well, but the gågate's are very popular.
In the center of town is the main church, the Cathederal. This is looking towards the church from a garden area in the downtown area.
Looking from the gågate down the garden area towards the harbor area. The houses on the other side of the water are on an island. The water inbetween the main land and the island is a strait and in Norwegian is called a sund, therefore the name Haugesund.